from the good-for-him dept

Back in October, we noted that in the latest triennial DMCA exemption review, the Copyright Office/Librarian of Congress refused to say it was legal for you to rip your own legally purchased DVDs so that you could watch them on a computer or tablet. That seems fairly ridiculous, especially given that similarly ripping your CDs is recognized as legal. Rep. Darrell Issa has apparently recognized how silly this and is planning a bill to fix the Copyright Office's mistake.

"We think we can write at least some clarifying language that would instruct the Copyright Office to more accurately define what is, in fact, fair use," Issa said in an interview [with Roll Call]. "People who make copies on their iPod for jogging are not the problem."

We won't see anything until the next session, but given that at least some of Issa's colleagues appear to agree that it's time to broaden fair use in copyright law, hopefully we can finally see some movement in Congress on bills that actually will allow greater creativity to flourish while also not making most of the nation lawbreakers for simply wanting to watch legally purchased DVDs without having to carry around the plastic discs.

from the ridiculous dept

It's that time again, when the Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyright announce their triennial "rulemaking" on DMCA exemptions for the anti-circumvention clause. Just the fact that they have to do this every three years should show how ridiculous the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA is. Basically, it's so screwed up that, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to randomly decide when the law can be ignored. Maybe... instead of doing that, you fix the law? There are some interesting exemptions, though they're limited. For example, people making "noncommercial" remix videos can apparently use clips from DVDs with specific limitations.

Motion pictures, as defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101, on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System, where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary because reasonably available alternatives, such as noncircumventing methods or using screen capture software as provided for in alternative exemptions, are not able to produce the level of high-quality content required to achieve the desired criticism or comment on such motion pictures, and where circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures for the purpose of criticism or comment in the following instances: (i) in noncommercial videos; (ii) in documentary films; (iii) in nonfiction multimedia ebooks offering film analysis; and (iv) for educational purposes in film studies or other courses requiring close analysis of film and media excerpts, by college and university faculty, college and university students, and kindergarten through twelfth grade educators. For purposes of this exemption, "noncommercial videos" includes videos created pursuant to a paid commission, provided that the commissioning entity's use is noncommercial.

In explaining this, they specifically call out the examples of remix videos as to why this should be allowed:

Creators of noncommercial videos provided the most extensive record to support the need for higher-quality source material. Based on the video evidence presented, the Register is able to conclude that diminished quality likely would impair the criticism and comment contained in noncommercial videos. For example, the Register is able to perceive that Buffy vs Edward and other noncommercial videos would suffer significantly because of blurring and the loss of detail in characters' expression and sense of depth.

Of course, it's not all good news. Public Knowledge had put forth a request for an exemption for being able to rip legally purchased DVDs for the sake of watching them on a computer or tablet. This is something that a ton of people already do, but which technically violates the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA. Unfortunately, this request was rejected -- even though it's already acknowledged as legal to do the same thing with CDs -- and, as PK's Michael Weinberg points out, even movie studio bosses seem to recognize that it should be legal to rip your own movies:

And the RIAA and the MPAA agree with you. In 2005, their lawyer (now the Solicitor General of the United States) assured the Supreme Court that "The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

Movie executives agree as well. Mitch Singer, the Chief Technology Officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment explained to author Robert Levine that the idea for the movie industry's UltraViolet program evolved out of Singer's own frustration with transferring movies between PCs in his home.

So what is the reasoning for the rejection? Well, they argue that space shifting might not be legal after all, despite all of the above. They claim that key cases involving the VCR and the mp3 player -- both of which were found to be legal -- do not "provide the legal basis for a broad declaration that space shifting of audiovisual works is a noninfringing use." Think about that for a second.

In 2006 and 2010, the Librarian of Congress had permitted users to unlock their phones to take them to a new carrier. Now that's coming to an end. While the new rules do contain a provision allowing phone unlocking, it comes with a crippling caveat: the phone must have been "originally acquired from the operator of a wireless telecommunications network or retailer no later than ninety days after the effective date of this exemption." In other words, phones you already have, as well as those purchased between now and next January, can be unlocked. But phones purchased after January 2013 can only be unlocked with the carrier's permission.

from the wow dept

Michael Weinberg, over at Public Knowledge, has an absolutely brutal takedown of Warner Bros. new "disc-to-digital" program, which lets you bring DVDs you already own into a store, who will then "handle the digital conversion" and give you back a digital file. Of course, Public Knowledge has been petitioning the Librarian of Congress for a rather simple exception to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision that would let people rip their DVDs to digital files. And while the text of Weinberg's writeup is worth reading, it's summarized so nicely in this graphic, that we'll just post that instead:

If you want to go through the text version of the takedown, head on over...

from the um,-wow dept

It's that time again when the Librarian of Congress is considering special exemptions to the DMCA's anti-cicrumvention provisions. One of the key proposals, which we discussed earlier, was Public Knowledge's request to allow people to rip DVDs for personal use -- just as we are all currently able to rip CDs for personal use (such as for moving music to a portable device). The MPAA (along with the RIAA and others) have responded to the exemption requests (pdf) with all sorts of crazy claims, but let's focus in on the DVD ripping question, because it's there that the insanity of Hollywood logic becomes clear.

Effectively, the MPAA is arguing that there is no evidence that ripping a DVD itself is legal, and since anti-circumvention exemptions are only supposed to be for legal purposes, this exemption should not apply. Leaving aside the sheer ridiculousness of the fact that we need to apply for exemptions to make legal acts legal (I know, I know...), this is quite a statement by the MPAA. While it's true that there hasn't been an official ruling on the legality of ripping a DVD, the fact that CD ripping is considered legal seems to suggest that movie ripping is comparable.

But the bigger point is that the MPAA is arguing that because they offer limited, expensive and annoying ways for you to watch movies elsewhere, you shouldn't have the right to place shift on your own:

Copyright owners include with many DVD and Blu-
Ray disc purchases digital copies of motion pictures that may be reproduced to mobile devices
and computers pursuant to licenses. Blu-Ray disc purchasers can also take advantage of
"Managed Copy" services that are scheduled to launch in the U.S. later this year. Movie
distributors and technology companies are also making available services such as UltraViolet,
which enables consumers to access motion pictures on a variety of devices through streaming
and downloading. Many movies and television shows are also available online through
services such as Comcast Xfinity, Hulu and Netflix, or websites operated by broadcasters or
cable channels, which consumers can enjoy from any U.S. location with internet access. With all
of these marketplace solutions to the alleged problem PK points to, it is unlikely that the
presence of CSS on DVDs is going to have a substantial adverse impact on the ability of
consumers to space shift in the coming three years.

Notice that almost all of these "market solutions" mean you have to pay multiple times for the same content -- and they ignore the fact that these offerings are all very limited and may not have the content on the DVDs people have. Public Knowledge has a quick summary of how these "solutions" are not solutions at all:

The MPAA had two specific suggestions. First, consumers could re-purchase access to a subscription service such as Netflix of Hulu. They did not dwell on the fact that 1) this would require you to pay again to access a movie you already own; 2) these services require a high speed internet connection in order to work; 3) There is a reasonable chance that the movie you own is not available on any of those services at any given time; and 4) MPAA member studios regularly pull videos that were once available on those services off of those same services.

The MPAA’s second suggestion was even less helpful. In their comments, they pointed to Warner Brothers’ DVD2Blu program. This program allows people to use their existing DVDs as a coupon towards the purchase of a handful of Warner Blu-Ray disks. They did not dwell on the fact that 1) this program is limited to Warner Brothers films; 2) the program is limited to 25 exchanges per household; 3) while some Blu-Ray disks include digital copies that can be moved to other devices, it is unclear how many of the disks in the DVD2Blu program include that option; 4) only 100 movies are included in the entire program; and 5) each exchange costs at least $4.95 plus shipping (which, for the record, is about as much as it would cost to buy the digital file from Amazon.).

When you think about it, this is really quite crazy. They're saying because they offer you an option to pay for a way too expensive, very limited option that might not really exist, you shouldn't have the right to rip your DVDs. This would be like the recording industry claiming you can no longer rip CDs because they offer a limited locked down selection of music in an online store. People would revolt at such a claim, and they should find the MPAA's ridiculous claims here equally as revolting.

If the MPAA stopped there, it would be crazy enough... but no, in the mind of Hollywood, they have to take it even further. They claim that because the ability to rip your DVD might take away their ability to keep charging you for the same content over and over again, that it goes against the purpose of copyright law. Seriously. They're actually claiming that their ridiculous "windows" are "new business models" that copyright law is designed to encourage:

In fact, granting PK’s proposed exemption would be directly counter to the purpose of
this rulemaking. It would undermine emerging business models that increase access to creative
works in precisely the manner Congress intended the DMCA to promote.

But that's pure bullcrap. The business models in question do not "increase access." They increase the ways in which you can pay. If they want to increase access, they would let you rip your damn movie.

It is clear that access controls have increased consumers’ options with respect to
motion pictures in digital formats. The Register should not interfere with that progress. Instead,
she should endorse it.

Up is down, black is white, day is night. Controls have increased consumer options? No freaking way. Controls have limited options... but have allowed the MPAA studios to set up tollbooths and charge people multiple times for content they legally had purchased the rights to.

from the how-quickly-they've-fallen dept

Over the past few years, it really looked like Brazil was close to becoming one of the most progressive countries on copyright issues. It was embracing fair use and the public domain in a strong way, and was even considering proposals to fully legalize file sharing. And, of course, the music industry is thriving in Brazil as well, in part due to the embracing of free distribution. The government had also embraced open culture in a variety of ways, even using Creative Commons licenses on government websites.

How quickly things change.

Within months of a new administration coming to town, the new Culture Minister, ordered the Creative Commons license off of the Ministry's website. When asked why, she said "We will discuss copyright reform when the time comes." But having a CC license on a webpage has nothing to do with copyright reform. However, it was a warning sign that such efforts were coming, and rather than continuing the progress made in the country, the new administration was looking to go in the other direction.

Now it appears that we're seeing some of those efforts in action. The country is considering a broad new "cybercrime" bill, that, among other things, will criminalize both file sharing and ripping a CD to a computer. File sharing may involve infringement, but at a civil, not criminal level. The fact that the government seems to be going much further is ridiculous -- especially at a time when the Brazilian technobrega scene has demonstrated so clearly how an entire musical culture can thrive (and make lots of money) without even using copyright (and even actively ignoring it and encouraging the widespread sharing of works).

from the get-it-right dept

I've been meaning to check out the movie Get Lamp (a documentary about text adventure games) for a while now, as I've heard good things about it (and, it should be confessed, I was an avid, potentially obsessive, consumer of text adventure computer games in the 80s). Also, I've always been a fan of the filmmaker, Jason Scott's other project Textfiles.com. While I hadn't had the chance yet, TorrentFreak has the nice story of how Scott reacted to the DVD of his film being ripped and put online. First off, it should be noted that those who ripped it posted a nice ode to Scott with the rip, and urged folks to buy the DVD, even noting that they purposely left off some of the extras to give people incentive.

I've just downloaded the torrent, and while the image quality and sound quality is excellent, you've made a mistake.

The DVD, as I've mentioned before, is interactive with a non-interactive version as well. To accomplish this and save space on the DVD (since it's packed with stuff), I have a set of discrete tracks that are either summoned (via the interactive choice) or played as a playlist (via the non-interactive choice). Unintentionally (and I do really mean it, it was unintentional), this has made the movie a tad harder to rip, because the movie is in pieces scattered throughout the DVD, and not in any obvious sequential order.

Playing the AVI that FLAiR has released shows that you have ripped only some of the tracks, and ripped one extra one that shouldn't be in there.

In the end, he notes: "While, again, I am pleased you wrote such kind things about me, this mixed-up version makes it look like I made a flawed DVD with doubled scenes, and takes away the entire puzzle sequence, which I am rather proud of." The rippers quickly fixed it and posted a fixed version. Now, the movie is released under a Creative Commons Share-alike license, so Scott (not surprisingly) is perfectly willing to have the movie spread, but it's still a nice story of a filmmaker responding positively to people ripping his film and sharing it online.

from the how-nice dept

A bunch of folks have submitted the story of Henrik Anderson, a Danish man who ripped a bunch of DVDs for personal storage, and then turned himself in, noting that even though Danish law says it's okay to make a backup copy of content for private purposes, it also forbids circumvention of DRM, such as the DRM found on DVDs. We had avoided posting anything on the story until the Danish group responded, and while it missed the original deadline, it has now stated that it will not go after Anderson, so long as he's only using the content for private use:

The main purpose of the rule is to ensure against abuse of films and music being illegally copied and distributed further. The Association of Danish Videodistributors certainly have no interest in suing consumers who like you have purchased legitimate products -- quite the contrary.

Of course, if that were true, then wouldn't the Danish Antipiratgruppen push to change the anti-circumvention law that makes this particular process illegal? After all, shouldn't they stand behind what they claim?

from the nice-work,-guys dept

For years, we've been a fairly persistent critic of the RIAA's tactics. It's not, as some incorrectly suggest, because we are "anti-RIAA" or that we somehow dislike the RIAA. Not at all. We simply believe their policies are incredibly damaging. First, they're damaging to fans of music who are suddenly treated like criminals just for wanting to listen to music. Second, they're damaging to musicians, who are being lied to about what business models make sense in a digital world. Most importantly, they're damaging to the very labels that the RIAA represents -- and the fact that the RIAA's continued strategy has resulted in increasing troubles for the major labels it represents as well as major acts defecting left and right at a time when the rest of the industry is thriving, seems to bear that out. In fact, I always find it amusing that providing the RIAA with accurate and useful advice about why its strategy is damaging and even providing alternative strategies could possibly be seen as being "anti-RIAA." It's not. It's anti-"dumb policies" -- policies that hurt everyone, including the record labels. For years, we've been ridiculously optimistic that one day, maybe (just maybe!) the powers that be at the RIAA would wake up, realize what a huge mistake they've been making, and start focusing not on treating fans like criminals, not on sneaking around Washington DC to mislead politicians into passing unnecessary and dangerous laws, but on new business models that actually make everyone better off.

That's why it shouldn't be surprising (or "ironic") that we pointed out where the Washington Post and others were wrong in describing a particular lawsuit filed by a record label against Jeffrey Howell. It does no one any good to fight that battle until it's actually necessary. In fact, by saying the RIAA is saying something they have not, it only gives the RIAA more ammo to suggest that those of us who are legitimately critiquing their policies are simply "making stuff up."

So, while I disagree with folks saying that it's impossible to unfairly malign the RIAA, it is rather telling (as pointed out at that same link) to look at how the RIAA has responded to this debate. If they were smart and had any strategic PR sense at all (I know, I know, stop laughing...), someone at the RIAA should have come out quickly and made a clear statement saying: "Ripping CDs for personal use is, and always has been, perfectly legal. We will not, and have not, sued anyone who does that." It's an easy, proactive statement that the RIAA could make. It wouldn't be conceding anything, as it's a factual statement based on the law. Instead, the RIAA has remained mostly quiet or made more careful statements, rather than just coming out and saying: "Yes, you can rip your CDs for personal use." And, for that, the RIAA should absolutely be maligned -- not because of any hatred or anti-RIAA sentiment -- but because it's just dumb and self-defeating.